How Should A Person Be? A Novel From Life (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
This ain't my flavor of Kool-Aid. Some clever observations and sizzling sentences. (Does Heti have a twitter account? I imagine she'd be good at it.) And sure, there's no story-story, and that's OK. Female friendship is such an under-explored topic that MAN, I was willing to go anywhere. But the self-involvement of the characters drained the life from the book. More kids magically not having jobs yet able to spend their time tearing themselves up over what "Art" is? Zzzzzzz.I did enjoy the "Everyone should be fucked by Israel" page. It felt ecstatic and genuine. I wish the narrator's relationship with Margaux had been described in a similar way, instead of behind a curtain of self-doubt and distrust. What the author did here is collect all those dinner table talks and link them with some major thinking on things like art, living, and friendship. So this book isn't as much anything as the stuff people (especially women) usually talk more or less about over the dinner table that they also soon get over with by the time it comes to drying the dishes. But I found myself comfortable with that, the fact it's a lot about things anyone can discuss. My appreciation of this work turned out okay because I warned myself first up that to take a title as daring as "How Should a Person Be" must mean trying somehow to get to the core of it, and that process itself is becoming. This book tried. To see it on just one spectrum would definitely leave it lacking, but to get back to the reality that what comprises the narrative of this book is just one among many ways of 'being' so to speak, then one can relax and support the flow. Or not. If so, at least the book might get you started on it.Oh, and I could definitely use a tape recorder.
What do You think about How Should A Person Be? A Novel From Life (2012)?
I smell pretentious & petty narcissism all over the pages. I bored myself reading through it.
—Emily
Started out as a great idea but by the end was not impressed.
—Jewelunicornz
This might work for a younger reader- but not for me.
—christianagbekpornu
Loved the protagonist, loved the book.
—xerxesxerxesxerxes
